The Impact Crater 11.09.06

Aaaaaand we head straight to the ring to kick off Impact!

Match Numero Uno: AJ Styles w/ Chris Daniels v. Bobby Roode w/ Traci Brooks vs. Ron Killings w/ Lance Hoyt

Lance Hoyt has apparently taken a fashion tip from Shawn Michaels, as it looks like he’s wearing a women’s tank top. Cross-dressing probably isn’t the smartest idea when born-again AJ is in the ring. Speaking of Styles and his overbearing neo-con morality, let’s not forget that he and Christopher Daniels had an argument last week over whether the Fallen Angel would be allowed to look at Traci Brooks’ crotch. Should be interesting to see if that comes back in to play tonight given that she’s at ringside. Roode heels it up and gets double teamed to start. Always good to put the bad guy in a situation in which he’s forced to overcome the odds. Bobby gets dropkicked and clotheslined out of the ring, after which AJ attempts a plancha. He cuts it off when Roode pulls Traci in the way, but Killings makes sure we’re not disappointed by landing a FAT no hands somersault dive on to Mr. Wallstreet. AJ takes advantage of the Truth’s position by flattening him with an Asai moonsault, and the good guys go back to the ring. Killings gets an axe kick and a facbuster for two, but Roode makes the save. K-Kwik is tossed from the ring by the Canadian now, and Bobby clips the knee before going to work on AJ’s left leg. He even works in the rolling half crab, though Killings puts an end to that with the missile dropkick. Styles cuts off Ron’s offense with an enzuguri and then gives Roode the Pele kick before heading up top. (Hey, he’s selling the knee!) Brooks grabs AJ’s leg, after which Daniels grabs Traci’s leg . . . HE’S TRYING TO LOOK AT HER CROTCH AGAIN! Lance Hoyt apparently also disapproves of Daniels getting his jollies, because he takes Brooks away from the leader of the Prophecy. This results in Hoyt throwing Traci in to the crowd, where a “fan” “accidentally” spills a drink on her. That leads to Roode piefacing the “fan,” while Styles rolls up Killings in the ring to win the match.

Match Thoughts: Eh. Spot, spot, spot, spot, conclusion. It wasn’t as bad as some of the X Division matches on this show have been, but it really felt like these three guys just hit the ring to do moves against each other instead of wrestling in a competitive environment. This sort of match was cool a few years ago, because a.) they hadn’t been done that frequently and b.) the moves being done had been seen in America on a very limited basis. However, now we’re living in a world in which spotfests are done weekly and just about every move that can be done has been done . . . and done to death in most cases. This style just isn’t special anymore. *

After the commercial break, Roode is shown yelling at Traci Brooks. He tells her that she needs to start interviewing security and image consultants for him. Apparently the last set of “Bobby Roode interviews people” skits were so popular that they’re going to bring them back for a second round. Hey, as long as it leads to another payday for Col. Rob Parker, I have no problem with that.

Now Shane Douglas is in the ring, and he calls out Bubba Dudley for reasons that are apparently to nobody. They supposedly had a problem a few weeks ago, when Shane tried to have a conversation with Bubba and Bubba disrespected him. “Why are you mad at me?” Bubba asks. Good question. Shane refuses to answer, instead going off on a rant about ECW and then slapping Bubba. Well, since TNA refuses to answer the simple question, I guess that I’ll have to make up my own answer. Let’s just say that Shane is mad at Bubba because Bubba made fun of the $1,5000 grooming job that Shane recently had done on his Pomeranian. That sounds as good as anything they’ll come up with. The Naturals also hit the ring hoping to gain a measure of revenge for Dudley’s distasteful comments about the lap dog. Douglas and Stevens double team Bubba and put him through a table. Before break number two, D-Von is shown in the back. He’s supposed to be selling a major beating from the Naturals, but instead he winds up sounding like he has a nasty case of acid reflux.

America’s Most Wanted are shown signing autographs in a parking lot, but Konnan interrupts them and throws their pens off the table. THAT BASTARD! Of course, it’s a set up for Homicide and Hernandez to hit the scene. Another phenomenal LAX beatdown follows, complete with James Storm being given the Border Toss in to a wall. Five bucks says that Hernandez gets a WWE developmental deal out of this angle.

Match Numero Dos: Austin Aries w/ Alex Shelley & Kevin Nash vs. Petey Williams vs. Johnny Devine

Nash is on commentary as the three men in the ring exchange early pinning combinations. Perhaps the saddest part of this show is that Nash isn’t really given an opportunity to say anything funny. Oh well, we all have our off nights. Aries gives Devine a back elbow and tries to toss Petey from the ring, but Williams hits him with a slingshot lungblower. That’s a new one. Devine takes over on Petey with a snap suplex, only to be hit with an Aries side slam seconds later. Austin goes for a noggin knocker on his opponents but gets backdropped before Williams lands his satellite legsweep on Devine. The Destroyer is cut off by Austin, but Petey hits him with an elbow smash. Johnny then goes up top for a moonsault on to Williams, and he gets two on Aries with a backslide. There’s a brainbuster from Austin, and he goes up. Petey cuts him off due to an inadvertent distraction from Shelley, and the Canadian hits his Destroyer on Devine for a three count. Good to see that they’re building to the Aries/Shelley breakup on the same show that they debuted as a unit.

Match Thoughts: Have you seen an X Division three-way at any point in the last six months? Then you’ve seen this. 1/2*

Immediately after the bell rings, LAX hits the ring. Konnan accuses AMW of jumping them from behind earlier in the day. I am also appalled (but not surprised) that Harris and Storm would do something that cowardly. K-Dawg starts talking to Petey Williams, saying that he too is an immigrant, so he will be allowed to join LAX next week when they burn the American flag on prime time television. Please tell me that “Petey Williams, white LAX member” is not an idea that Vince Russo seriously wants to pursue. That might be the only thing that could ruin this otherwise top notch group. Anyway, the American flag stands for lies and deceit according to the former Max Moon, which is why next week he will spit and urinate on it before lighting it on fire. Words cannot describe how effective Konnan has been in this role, and this was another intense, angry promo in an excellent series of them. It’s just a shame that he has to do them on TNA instead of on a bigger stage.

Post-ad break, Christian and Rhino are interviewed by Mike Tenay. For security purposes, the three men are being filmed in separate locations. God knows that Iron Mike might snap and beat the crap out of Rhino if they were in the same room. Christian cuts what is technically a pretty good promo, but it loses a lot of the impact because this is not being done in front of a live crowd, meaning that there’s nobody to respond to what is said. Rhino tries to talk, but Cage cuts him off. Eventually Rhino does get an opportunity to make some idle threats, and Xian does a good job of pretending that he’s scared. Rhino threatens to kick Christian’s ass tonight and storms off . . . but he’s not seen again for the rest of the show. What happened? Did he get stuck in traffic?

Now Don West is shown in “GENESIS CENTRAL,” wearing a bright yellow shirt and bright yellow tie in front of a bright yellow sign. My retinas were burned during this segment. Apparently “GENESIS CENTRAL” is short for “DON WEST’S CORNER OF SHILLING,” as he puts over the PPV, new DVDs, and the Prime Time Debut. Elix has been with the company for years, so I don’t understand why they’re hyping up his “debut” so much.

Comments from Samoa Joe and Kurt Angle about their upcoming match are next. Both men do a fine job of putting over the contest, and I’m glad that they’ve kept them apart for these couple of weeks. The numerous pull-aparts were getting to be a bit too much. In a nice touch that may or may not have been intentional, the footage of Angle looks polished and well-produced, whereas the footage of Joe is grainier and lower rent. That adds nicely to the dynamic of “established star” Kurt Angle taking on “up and comer” Joe.

Match Numero Tres: AJ Styles vs. Abyss

The winner here gets a title shot against Sting at the pay per view and gets to job to Kurt Angle next week. These two usually have good matches against each other, though I’m afraid that they won’t get the time to on this show. The referee ejects both Christopher Daniels and Jim Mitchell form ringside as we start the match. Styles tries to shoot the leg to start, but Abyss shoves him off and hits an elbow. The monster then beals his opponent across the ring, though he misses a Stinger splash and gets hit with shoulders in the corner. AJ follows that up with a rana and goes for a suplex, but it fails. Styles manages to stay in control and hits another rana before charging at the bigger man with some clotheslines. The third one of those fails miserably, as AJ runs in to his opponent’s boot. Abyss’ next move is to grab a chair, which he wedges in between the turnbuckles. Abyss slingshots his opponent in to the furniture now. For some reason he is not disqualified. That sets up an avalanche from Abyss, though AJ slips out of the torture rack and mounts a comeback with a dropkick and some forearms from the mount. Some Irish whips are reversed, and that results in Abyss taking out both Styles and the referee with an avalanche. Now Christian Cage runs in, and he lays out both competitors with chairshots. He grabs a mic and lets us know that it’s because he should be the individual getting a title shot, not Styles or Abyss. I can’t disagree with that statement. With both wrestlers KO’ed the referee counts to ten after coming back to his senses. The bell rings, and presumably we’ve got a double KO finish as we head in to a commercial break. Naturally, when we come back, it’s announced that the match will continue until there’s a decisive winner. AJ’s first move back is hitting his springboard forearm for a nice nearfall. He gets another two count with a victory roll, but Abyss gets back in to the swing of things when he cuts off the Asai DDT and hits the Shock Treatment. At this point the ejected Jim Mitchell runs back in with a bag of tacks, but Chris Daniels cuts him off. There is still no DQ. The referee heads out of the ring to get rid of the interlopers, and AJ chooses that exact point to set up the Styles Clash. That’s the perfect opening for one Chris Sabin to run in, hitting an enzuguri that sets up a Black Hole Slam and an Abyss victory.

Match Thoughts: Sometimes you’ll have great actors in a movie, and their performances are so good that the movie will be entertaining even though the writing is absolute crap. The pro wrestling equivalent of that happened tonight. To say this match was overbooked would be an understatement. You had four men running in at various points, one ref bump, one major distraction of the referee, and one point at which the match completely stopped for no good reason. The same result that the company was going for could have been achieved with half of the run-ins, without the ref bump, and without the mid-match stoppage. Normally in situations like this, I would be ready to crap all over the bout. However, there was something about the way that Abyss and Styles worked it that kept things entertaining. They know each other so well by this point and all of their movements together are so fluid that they could have a good match with just about any handicap thrown in their way, Vince Russo included. Things built well around the bullshit, starting off basic and crescendoing in to a series of nearfalls that actually looked like they could be match enders for Styles until the inevitable heel run-in. This was the best match on Impact in at least a month and a half. Sadly, it could have been a lot better without the overbooking. **1/2

Hey, Sting is standing in the rafters! That’s all he does, and then we go off the air.

Overall

Judged in a vacuum, this was an average show. However, compared to the last two weeks of Impact, it was wrestling nirvana. There were some stupid points, including Shane Douglas’ unexplained beef with Bubba Dudley and the overbooking of the main event. However, LAX delivered a strong beat-down/promo, Christian’s mic work was strong, Styles and Abyss had a decent free TV match, and the build for Joe/Angle continues to be well-executed. With four major positives after weeks of nonsensical, shitty wrestling, I’d actually be inclined to give this episode of Impact a thumbs up. Somebody please record this and bring it up the next time that I’m accused of not giving Impact a fair shake.

With the show in chief finished, let’s now move on to what some of my fine readers have had to say about this week in TNA. For those of you who may have missed last week’s Crater, it included my long term booking plan for the Samoa Joe vs. Kurt Angle feud. The majority of the week’s feedback focused on that.

Brian T. raves:

With that kind of booking, I wish you were getting paid for it, too.

Yeah, normally I wouldn’t reprint one-liners, but it was complimentary so I had no choice. Anyway, John R. provides us with something a bit more substantial, including his views on how to book last week’s Impact:

Know why you’ll never get paid for this? Because you’re answers actually make sense, it’s simple and to the point, something TNA doesn’t quite get. I’m finding it ridiculous that you can’t give an objective analysis without getting grilled by fanboys for being a homer for the other federation. I like reading yours and Csonka’s reviews because there’s no fluff, just straight analysis. If something’s good you give it props. If it sucks, it sucks, simple as that. Keep on doing what you’re doing!

Will do.

That being said, I think if they went the simple route last night you could still make a filler show have impact (pun not intended).

AJ/Sabin: First of all, I knew it was a bad idea to put the title on the line, at least right now, because this match is to put over the tournament for the WORLD Title. The best bet would have been for AJ to win (I know for time purposes they couldn’t put on a 5* match, so that’s ok) and then Sabin get so pissed at AJ that at Genesis he puts the title on the line against Styles, with Senshi involved in a three way (that did not come out right) because he exercises his rematch clause. This way regardless of the winner they could sow the seeds for a sick AJ/Senshi feud while Sabin could use his heel persona (he wasn’t going to truly get over as a face) against the rest of the X-Division.

I would have no problem with this. Styles and Low Ki have worked very well together for years, and I can only imagine them being better now. It’s also a relatively fresh pairing for TNA fans. (Yeah, they wrestled on the weekly PPVs, but that was several years ago by this point.) The only problem is that, when it comes to Ki, he’s got the sort of gimmick that Vince Russo just doesn’t “get.” He’s not wacky enough. Sadly I think that means he’ll wind up being completely buried in this new regime, though hopefully I’m proven wrong.

Hoyt/Killings – Can’t really say much else about this match, it was post match that bothered me. The only way this makes sense is if they’re trying to set up the James Gang to go after the titles. With Russo though you never know. However, the whole work/shoot angle was over the top. 1998 is over guys!

Just wait until you see what they’re actually setting up. It’s definitely not them going for the titles, and it’s definitely far more stupid than their most recent promo.

Daniels/Roode- oh yes, the “mid card finisher of doom” does it again. Ok I understand they want to get Roode over, but for what? It will make no sense for him to win and fight Abyss, no one will care. I would just like to see where they go with this for Daniels, because if they decide to split up the team, give this man something meaningful to do. Again, until Spike TV pulls the trigger on a second hour with another title talented guys like Daniels will be relegated between the X-division and tag title scene.

The problem is that they’ve devalued the X Title so much that a fan like you will see it as Daniels being “relegated” to something. It used to be that the X Title was a legitimate second belt that was just as important as the World Championship – sort of like what ECW managed to do during Rob Van Dam’s TV Title reign. If they would just better utilize their one hour properly and make the X Title mean something again, Daniels and the other members of the division would also mean something.

Christian/Rhino – To quote your recap this was the RUSSORIFIC SEGMENT OF THE WEEK. That should be a staple for all reviews in my opinion, because I have a feeling we’ll be seeing plenty of >hose. I had no idea what the purpose of this match was. I understand TNA wants to be different, but do it with the purpose of making sense. If they want to have a “whatever weapon on a pole” match, fine, but no need for run ins by two jobbers who are on a goth kick.

Again, it gets worse.

As for Joe/Angle, people said TNA should’ve done the slow burn, but I will give them credit on having the match already. If this was WWE who is already on top of the wrestling totem pole (in terms of reaching the casual fans) then they could do that, but TNA is thinking about getting those casual fans into PPV buys, and they have to strike while the iron’s hot. That being said, you can’t have a winner of the match in the traditional sense, because then that kills any real significance for the future. I think your suggestion is best (not brownnosing, just calling a spade a spade) that they should have Joe put him out for a while. It gets Joe over as a monster and it gives TNA a legitimate first level heel to replace JJ. Christian is good but not the heel who can carry a federation like Joe can. People will say that it will hurt TNA to not have Angle on their shows. Wrong! This sets up Joe/Sting which will get the fans talking. Joe as an unstoppable monster with the World Title and not some cheat makes for much better TV for the next six months.

That was exactly my logic when I came up with the story arc. It’s the best of both worlds, as you get Joe/Angle right off the bat to satisfy the TNA fans who want it immediately. The idea should be to give the match to the fans in a way that doesn’t give them a conclusive winner without leaving them feeling screwed over. If that happens, you set up a money rematch that could be just as big if not bigger than a first encounter with several months of build.

Thomas S. still can’t get over how bad the reverse battle royale was, and he has a message for my hatazzzz:

Wow. You write one negative review and all of a sudden you have a vendetta against TNA? What a bunch of ignorant morons. Don’t listen to them. I definitely agree with you. But what really annoyed me about the ass-backwards battle royal was something completely obvious. I’ll give you an example. Christopher Daniels (I believe it was him) was standing outside the ring, with no one near him. Instead of just climbing into the ring, he chose to keep someone else from climbing in the ring. He had a free pass into the ring, and let it go. Now, it may have been someone else, but that doesn’t matter. I saw this a few times. While the rules may be simple, they are also moronic. I give credit to TNA for trying to be creative, but you can’t succeed in being creative if your idea is completely moronic. If this were a real match, everyone would’ve tried to climb in the quickest, not try to keep others from getting in. The example I pointed out was a good example of why people don’t take wrestling seriously. Even if you were a casual or non-fan who figured out the rules, what would you think if you saw many guys completely ignore an opportunity? You wouldn’t think. You’d be too busy stabbing your eyes with a hot knife.

I must have unleashed some sort of fantasy wrestling bug upon the people, because it bit Adam B.. He’s got a storyline for one of his TNA favorites:

first off, i must say that i disagree with you about the impact from the week before being horrible, but since you made the other readers who disagreed with you (and for the most part sounded like idiots) your personal bitches, i’ll just leave it at that.

Hey, there’s nothing wrong with having a differing opinion, so long as you’re able to back it up with decent arguments. Sadly, the people who wrote me last week were incapable of doing that.

i think your booking of tna was very logical and made sense, so we both know that it will never happen. plus i can’t see angle selling an injury for a couple months, i mean why would tna sign a huge name only to not use them at all… oh wait they did that with sting nevermind.

There are some situations in which it’s best to sign a big star and keep him on the sidelines. Take a look at Hulk Hogan in the WWF in 2002. His first couple of appearances spiked ratings and lead to a major dream match. However, as soon as that was over, things started to plummet because he became just another guy on the roster. There was nothing special about him, and the longer he remained on TV the lower the ratings got. He would have been much more cost effective if he had just stayed on the sidelines and showed up every couple of months for another dream match. There’s something to be said for making sure that your “special attractions” remain special attractions and not overexposed dorks.

however i would like to add another name to your booking, a wrestler who is currently in a hot feud and is still over with the crowd even though tna likes to make him look like a bitch on many occasions. yes i’m talking about christian cage. i think tna could have two big feuds going on at the same time, the obvious angle/joe feud and the title chase between sting and cage. i think cage deserves to be back in the title hunt, especially if he beats rhino one last time in the barbed wire cage match. damn the guy’s last name is cage how are they gonna punk him out by having him lose a cage match? plus having a cage/sting feud could bring back jarrett whenever he needed to come back (let’s all pray it’s around 2008).

I agree that Christian needs a title feud. He’s been on a real hot streak ever since he turned heel, cutting some of the best promos in the business, perhaps second only to Konnan. Though I didn’t take the time to sketch it out, I did contemplate Xian attempting to take the belt off of Sting while Joe was doing other things in my fantasy booking scenario.

here’s the order of events:

yes your booking is way better than mine, i’m just a huge christian cage mark and would love to see him get the belt again. let’s hope tna starts making more sense soon, we don’t need another shitty wrestling show on tv we already have raw and ecw 2 of them are plenty.

Hey, don’t forget Smackdown!